Point Blank
Overview
Lee Marvin stars as the lethal Walker in director John Boorman's stunningly stylized daylight noir, POINT BLANK. Mal Reese (John Vernon), Walker's partner in crime, shoots him and leaves him for dead on desolate Alcatraz Island just after they've pulled off a huge heist. For good measure, Reese also makes off with Walker's perfidious wife, Lynne (Sharon Acker). A couple of years later, while touring Alcatraz, Walker is approached by a man named Yost (Keenan Wynn) who offers to help him get his cut of the take by leading him to Reese and Lynne in exchange for information about the mysterious organization that now includes the thief's ex-partner. Walker agrees. He first runs down Lynne in L.A. and says hello by burying a few rounds in her bed but leaves her unharmed. Long ago abandoned by Reese, she's disintegrating emotionally and attempts to babble an explanation of her actions to the indifferent Walker. With the help of Lynne's sister, Chris (Angie Dickinson), Walker gains access to Reese's seemingly impregnable penthouse apartment, and the former partners' reunion is less than blissful. One of the best thrillers of the 1960s, the film's deadpan amorality and fragmented Resnais-influenced narrative, echoed in the startling camera angles and obliquely gorgeous anamorphic compositions of high-testosterone specialist Philip Lathrop (THE CINCINNATI KID), make clear why POINT BLANK has slowly become one of the most influential noirs.
Awards:
Main Cast & Crew:
John Boorman - Director
Lee Marvin
Angie Dickinson
Keenan Wynn
Carroll O'Connor
Lloyd Bochner
Michael Strong
John Vernon
Sharon Acker
James B. Sikking
Sandra Warner
Details
- Format: Blu-ray (Digital Theater System, Dolby)
- Run Time: 92
- Color Format: Color
- UPC: 883929409259
- Genre: DRAMA
- Rating: Not Rated
- Release Date: July 2014
Movie Reviews
Synopsis:
A man shot and left for dead by his unfaithful wife and her mobster boyfriend exacts his revenge on them a few years later in this thriller directed by John Boorman.
Notes:
Theatrical release: August 30, 1967.
Shot on locations on Alcatraz Island, San Francisco, and in Los Angeles, California.
Director John Boorman and actor Lee Marvin also worked together on HELL IN THE PACIFIC the following year.
Boorman claims that on a day when, as a relatively inexperienced director, he reached the set with no idea how to shoot a given scene, Marvin noticed his confusion and quietly told him to take his time setting up the shot. He then feigned hungover incompetence, stopping the shoot until he saw that the director had a handle on the set-up, whereupon he returned to his sobriety, and Boorman proceeded to shoot.
Reviews:
"...[An] enigmatic and dreamlike work....Boorman makes brilliant use of his LA locations, filling the screen with starling, hallucinatory images..." -- 5 out of 5 Stars - 06/01/2000 Total Film, p.106
"...A cult film....In a class with BONNIE AND CLYDE..." -- 3 1/2 out of 4 stars - 02/12/1993 USA Today, p.3D
"[A] tightly coiled noir." - 07/08/2005 Entertainment Weekly, p.53-56
5 stars out of 5 -- "Marvin is exceptional." - 03/22/2013 Empire
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